Shem Creek (29 page)

“Sorry, Duane! How do you say puppies in Italian?” I said.

“
Cuccioli,
I think,” Brad said, coming up the steps. “What’s going on up here?”

“Hey, there! Afternoon comedy hour! And, how do you say quiet?”

“Ah! That one’s easy!
Silenzio
!”

“Ha! I see where you’re going! Let’s put that on the menu!
Silenzio cuccioli!
” Duane said. He grabbed the menu from me. “Oh, God! I
love
it! Linda! If you ever leave, I
definitely
quit! The rest of the menu is
tricolore
salad and cannoli wedding cake. And of course there’s
pollo champagne
if somebody is allergic to
fritto misto
. Does that meet everyone’s approval?”

He didn’t wait for nods. He just spun and flew down the steps.

“What kind of fool thing is he talking about now?” Louise said. “Silenzero Cucco?
What
did he say?”

I was dying laughing and so was Brad. “Hush puppies, Louise.
Silenzio cuccioli!
He’s serving just about the same thing we always serve—fish chowder, fried seafood and hush puppies with a green salad. I think we should serve
mucca pazza bistecca,”
Brad said.

“What kinda fool... ?” Louise’s agitation had disappeared and she was laughing now too.

“Mad Cow Steak, with an amusing
fungi
sauce on the side, of course!”

“I love this job,” I said. “There’s a store in Ridgewood, New Jersey, called The Nut House. I always thought it would be funny to work there. But this is way better!”

“Yeah, this is some nut house, all right,” Louise said. “I’m going downstairs. We got flowers and ferns coming. Better see about that and make sure the Fat Bastard got here too.”

“Louise!” I said, shocked by her language. “Who are you talking about?”

Now it was Louise’s turn to laugh along with Brad.

“What?” I said. “What’s so funny?”

“Fat Bastard is the brand of wine they insisted on serving,” Brad said. “Lord only knows why! It’s terrible! But she wanted Fat Bastard and frozen margaritas. Some sentimental thing, I guess.”

Louise started to leave again but Brad stopped her. “Louise? This looks awfully nice. Isn’t it great to have a wedding here?”

“Yes, it surely is,” Louise said, and disappeared down the steps. “Bring us all good luck!”

Brad and I were left alone for the next ten minutes or so and I decided it was a good time to thank him for his concern last night. I had the bar almost ready to open.

“Hey, Brad, um, well, thanks. You know? For last night and everything.” What was the matter with me, stammering all around?

“Oh, shoot. It was nothing.” He grabbed a handful of pistachios from the bowl on the bar.

He stared at me the same funny way he had the night before. I was glad that at least this time I had on makeup.

“Yeah, it was. It was a big deal to come out at that hour. Thanks.” I leaned down and pulled up a handful of ashtrays to put around the deck on the odd chance that someone still smoked.

“No problem. Everything okay today?”

“Yeah,” I said, and went behind the bar to unlock the liquor cabinet. “In fact, Alex is going with Gracie on this river sweep thing.”

“Cleaning up the riverbeds?”

“Uh-huh,” I said. Jeez! Why did I always talk like such a moron around him? I could do better! “Uh, actually I think they’re onto a good thing actually. Learning about the environment is surely more beneficial than sitting in front of a television. Don’t you agree?” With the exception of that one
uh
and the two
actually
s I felt better about my facile use of the language.

“Definitely,” he said, with a smirk. “Hey! Here comes the bride!”

I rushed around to the railing to see the long white movie-star limousine pull up in front of our poor little dump of a seafood joint. Her bill for the car would probably be twice as much as the dinner. O’Malley was right—I was too cynical. But the romantic in me waited to see the bride emerge and when she did, what a sight she was.

She was wearing a skintight white spandex halter dress to her knees with a veil that went to the ground. She had more cleavage than Dolly Parton and more razzle-dazzle fake diamonds than all the vendors on QVC! Wow! Four other cars were behind her, loaded with guests, and I suspected there were more to follow.

Brad looked at me with his jaw hanging and said, “Well?”

“Well, what? I say, gentlemen? Start your blenders!”

The sunset deck was bulging with wedding guests within minutes and it was all I could do to keep up with the drink orders. But everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. O’Malley had come up to help, which I appreciated very much. Erica and Lisa were passing hors d’oeuvres on bamboo trays.

“Thought this was a party of twenty-four,” he said quietly. “So far, I’ve counted over fifty people.”

“Well, that’s typical,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ll go tell Duane to add water to the soup.”

“Get another blender!”

So far, it didn’t appear that Brad was going to lose one dollar on the cocktail hour judging by the rate of consumption. There was an excitement in the air that only comes with a wedding reception. One of the guests was leaning on the bar, trying to get my attention.

“Hi,” I said, “what can I get for you?”

“A glass of white wine would be great,” he said. “Hey, do you need a hand back there?”

“Are you a bartender?” I put the goblet in front of him and filled it.

“My dear lady, I happen to be the Cheese Whiz of Charleston!”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m Arthur Fisher, by the way.” He extended his hand; I gave it a good shake, and he winced. “Some grip!”

“Sorry.” Unfortunately, first impressions are sometimes all we are given and I decided this fellow was a little peculiar.

A great-looking blonde woman who must have been his girlfriend came through the crowd and took his elbow. “Don’t bother the nice lady, Arthur.”

I giggled and said, “Glass of wine?”

“Sure, thanks,” she said, “he’s really harmless. Did he give you a whole cheese education yet?”

“No,” I said.

“I actually offered to help her, Anna,” Mr. Whiz said. “She’s running this whole bar by herself and I just thought . . .”

“Actually, the other bartender will be right back. So, where do you perform your cheese wizardry?”

“I just left High Cotton downtown and I’m at Cypress for the moment.”

“Never been there,” I said. “I just moved back here a couple of months ago.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Anna said. “Once you get the South Carolina sand in your shoes, you always come back.”

“Sure seems that way,” I said and turned to help some other guests, but Arthur kept talking.

“Come see us at Cypress,” Arthur said, “I’ll make you a green apple martini and dazzle you with dairy.”

“How cheesy can you get?” I asked, and put a batch of margaritas in the blender.

Arthur would have been happy to stand there all day making cheese jokes but Anna finally pulled him away.

Finally, the bride approached.

“Hi! Congratulations!”

“Thanks! Isn’t this just wonderful? Isn’t life wonderful? Isn’t the world wonderful?”

I smiled and just shook my head. “Yes, it is. Can I get something for you?”

“Yes! I believe I’m gonna have me a big old martini! But, don’t tell Doc!”

I crossed my heart and opened two mini-bottles of gin.

“You married?” she asked.

“Nope?”

“Got a man?”

“Not right now,” I said, shaking the gin and vermouth.

“Well, you should go on and find yourself one and take the plunge! There ain’t nothing in all this cotton-picking world like being in love!”

Lucy, the bride of Doc Lutz, dressed like, saints preserve us, a pole dancer from a border town, was dead serious. And, I suspected she was dead right. In a peculiar twist of Lowcountry artistry, the beaming light behind her made her look radiant. In that moment, she looked absolutely angelic despite all her wardrobe and cosmetic attempts to appear otherwise. Maybe that was what made me really hear what she was saying. I poured her drink into a glass, added two olives on a toothpick, and placed it before her.

“Mrs. Lutz . . .”

“Call me Lucy, darlin’! But I
do
love the sound of Mrs. Lutz!”

“Lucy then. Lucy? I believe you. How do you know when it’s the one?”

“Oh, honey, that’s easy. You find the right man when you put out the vibe that you’re the right woman! And, one other thing, you have to be ready.”

She raised her glass to me, took a very large gulp and moved back among her guests.

Dinner was announced and everyone slowly drifted downstairs. O’Malley and I stayed behind to clean up and get ready for the regulars to arrive. It was barely five o’clock, and within the hour we would be packed to capacity again.

“Louise has got the downstairs bar under control,” O’Malley said, “and Brad’s there to help her if it gets crazy.”

“Good,” I said. “With all the extra wedding guests, our regulars are going to have a fit!”

“That’s the beauty of a preplanned menu,” O’Malley said, “Louise will have them fed and out of here in an hour.”

“This I gotta see,” I said. “I think that crowd takes their partying seriously.”

I looked out at the bridge over Shem Creek. Under it, I saw a group of about twenty people with black plastic garbage bags, stooped, picking up garbage. It had to be Gracie’s river sweep team. I spotted Jason Miller and thought about my prejudice toward him. Just because I didn’t like him did not mean that he wasn’t a good influence as a teacher. Indeed. If anyone had told me three months ago that my Gracie would spend a glorious afternoon picking up beer cans and cigarette butts I would have laughed. Now, if the beer cans were full? Then, yes, Gracie might have been the first to sign up.

“What’s going on?” O’Malley said.

“You won’t believe this, but that’s Gracie and Alex and a bunch of kids from Wando. They’re doing community volunteer work to clean up Shem Creek.”

“No way! When I was that age I would’ve screamed my head off if somebody made me do that.”

We looked down again and Jason Miller was coming toward the restaurant with the kids. Directly below us was the main dining room with an enormous open-air porch, probably crammed with early diners, as were all the other restaurants along the creek. He was carrying a tube that he stopped to open. He pulled out and unrolled posters, giving one to each student. They climbed up on the dock and proceeded to the area just below the porch and lined up. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my heart began to race. They held up their posters for the diners to see. They said,
Shem Creek is dead and it’s your fault! Boats kill habitats! Stop supporting restaurants that poison the water!

Before I had the time to faint, I said, “I gotta get Gracie and Alex out of there.”

I hurried down the steps and out to the dock as fast as I could, and by the time I got there Brad had Alex’s arm and was already in the middle of the group. I grabbed Gracie by the hand and pulled her away.

“Have you lost your mind?” I said. “I
work
here!”

“I didn’t know he wanted us to protest, Mom,” she said, “I swear! Neither did Alex!”

“Well, there went
your
after-school job,” I said, moving back in the group to hear what was being said.

“I’m just trying to make a living here,” Brad said.

“Yeah? And, I can show you statistics that prove you and all the others along here are killing the water,” Jason Miller said.

“You’re a little aggressive, okay? Let’s move along and not disturb my patrons any more than you already have,” Brad said. “Okay, pal?”

Then I heard the sirens. I took Gracie and Alex back inside and put them in my office.

“Do not leave this room, do you hear me?”

Gracie glared at me and Alex stared at the floor.

The dining room became a little chaotic and many people were asking for their checks all at once. Others were standing along the porch railing, watching. One thing was certain—this was not good for business.

I went back upstairs to the sunset deck, where O’Malley was serving drinks as quickly as he could. Quite a crowd had gathered there, most of them hanging over the side, gawking at what was going on below. I saw Jason Miller taken away in handcuffs and the kids were apparently free to go home. At that point, the posters had been put away, probably stuffed in their garbage bags or taken in for evidence. I called Louise on the intercom.

“Hey, it’s me. Listen, Gracie and Alex are in my office.”

“No, they ain’t,” she said.

“What?”

“They’re washing dishes with Lupe! I told them they were getting demoted!”

“Good! Lupe’s here?”

“Honey, it’s all hands on deck today!”

“How’s the bride? Do you need a hand down there?”

“The bride is leading a conga line around the dining room, twitching around like she’s got fleas and kissing all the men. On the lips. And they’re not her guests.”

“I’ll be right down.”